Wellbeing interventions that work

The adage ‘that you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink’ is strangely accurate when it comes to designing wellbeing initiatives that employees want to engage with. Much like the horses of the old saying, employees are the power source of most businesses, but their specific health and wellbeing needs are less obvious. Just making something available doesn’t mean it will be used.

 

In a world where everyone is feeling the pressure of rapid change and uncertainty, as well as the need to achieve more with the same energy resources, even wellbeing interventions - because they involve time commitment as well as emotional engagement - are subject to an emotional cost-benefit analysis. Ironically, pressure of work is often stated as the reason initiatives go unused, with some employees going on to say they feel the added pressure of guilt because they are unable to find the time to use them.

 

Employee wellbeing has rightly become a core pillar of organisational strategy, yet most organisations will say engagement with what they provide remains inconsistent. Many companies do offer a dizzying array of offerings, but real impact seems to depend on whether employees feel motivated, supported, and able to take part.

 

Engagement appears shaped less by the initiatives themselves and more by the environment surrounding them. Drivers for engagement are therefore varied, and some of these are discussed below, along with what organisations can do to strengthen them.

 

 

Communicate with Clarity and Purpose

Strong communication remains one of the most important foundations for engagement. Research shows that employees are far more likely to participate when wellbeing initiatives are clearly explained, easy to understand, and visibly relevant to their needs. Poor communication is a major cause of disengagement, while clear and consistent messaging helps maintain interest over time.

 

Organisations should ensure messaging is simple, repeated, and tailored to different teams. This includes explaining why the initiative exists, how it supports employee needs, and what the employee will gain as a result.

 

 

Leadership Behaviour Matters Most

A major qualitative study into workplace mental wellbeing found that leadership behaviour directly shapes participation. Leaders who actively promote initiatives - not just allow them to exist - create psychological safety and signal that wellbeing is genuinely valued. Conversely, leaders who ignore or obstruct participation can dramatically undermine engagement.

 

To strengthen uptake, leaders need to model healthy behaviours themselves, ideally making it obvious that they put practical effort into maintaining their own wellbeing (rather than just saying it’s a good thing to do), encourage use of what’s provided, and openly discuss wellbeing to reduce stigma. In doing so, they give others permission to do the same.

 

Building a Wellbeing for Performance Culture

Culture is a powerful predictor of participation. When employees feel their organisation genuinely supports health and wellbeing, motivation, and confidence to participate in what’s on offer rises significantly. A study on workplace wellness programmes found that perceived organisational support strongly correlates with higher participation rates.

 

Creating a culture of health means embedding wellbeing into the everyday culture - it’s part of what we do around here, it’s what gives us the competitive edge. It is not a nice-to-have, an employee benefit, or a crisis response.

 

Understand what your employees need - don’t guess

Employees engage most when what’s on offer looks relevant, accessible, and that it’s meant for them. Research highlights the importance of addressing genuine challenges such as stress, heavy workloads, and mental health needs. Programmes that maintain interest, provide targeted support, and address both preventative and reactive wellbeing issues achieve consistently better engagement.

 

Light touch enquiries into ‘what it feels like to work here’ and how much energy staff have to meet work demands can help considerably in understanding both what resources to make available as well as targeting them at the right people, in the right way. Taking a team-based approach to wellbeing can be enormously helpful too, as individuals can support each other and come to collectively appreciate that accessing services can strengthen resilience and coping skills and therefore benefit the whole team.

 

 

Create Space for Wellbeing

A sense of too much to do in too little time remains one of the biggest barriers to participation. Studies show that even highly motivated employees cannot engage with wellbeing initiatives if job demands remain too high. Protecting time for participation, setting realistic workloads, and encouraging employees to recognise the role that personal wellbeing investment plays in health and performance sustainability are essential for driving uptake. This requires explicit signals from leadership that wellbeing is part of work, not a break from it.

 

 

Nurture Psychological Safety and Trust

Engagement increases when employees trust that participating in wellbeing initiatives won’t lead to negative consequences or judgment. Psychological safety is largely shaped by leadership, communication, and organisational norms. Research shows that when employees feel safe to express needs and seek support, they are more confident in engaging with wellbeing programmes.

 

Normalising conversations about stress, mental health, and workload is key. Leadership can speed the process up enormously by being open and sharing aspects of their own lived experience in these areas with their own teams.

 

 

Share Stories of Personal Benefit

To make time to engage, as previously said, employees must believe initiatives will genuinely help them. When programmes appear tokenistic or misaligned, engagement drops. But when employees see colleagues benefitting, or when initiatives provide clear, practical value, participation rises. Sharing success stories and communicating evidence of impact can enhance perceived value and level up the cost/benefit calculation.

 

 

More than a menu of programmes

Engagement with wellbeing initiatives depends on more than offering a menu of programmes. It requires the right cultural conditions: supportive leadership, clear communication, manageable workloads, and psychologically safe environments. By addressing these factors, organisations can transform wellbeing initiatives from underused offerings into genuine drivers of resilience, engagement, and performance.

 

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Lesley Cooper is the founder of WorkingWell, a consultancy that helps companies manage workplace pressure in a way that facilitates growth. She is also the co-author of Brave New Leader: How to Transform Workplace Pressure into Sustainable Performance and Growth.

 

Main image courtesy of iStockPhoto.com and Parradee Kietsirikul